Momnesia

That's Chicago, Part Shut up Already!

So there I was... mano y mano... or mano y perro... or, mujera y perro. Whatever; there was a black dog the size of a house that was about to squash me like a Wicked Witch in Munchkinland. Even if the officer could draw his gun and fire in the .3 milliseconds before the dog latched his many teeth into my neck, the weight of the overgrown canine would certainly crush me to bits.

I stared at the dog with rising horror while its paws reached for my shoulders. This is the part where I was supposed to cry something like, "Goodbye, cruel world." Instead, I made a high-pitched squealing sound that went, "skreeeeeeeee!" The Rottweiller opened his mouth, reached for my head... and drooled on me. He stood, paws on my shoulders, tongue lolling to the side, breathing Milkbone into my face, and grinning. "Rrrrrroooooowf!" he barked, blowing out my eardrums and rearranging my hair. It was dog speak for "Gotcha!" Even the officer and the tow truck driver were guffawing. I expected one of them to slap his knee and call "Hooo, dawgy, but you looked skeered!" And then the sound of banjos would come wafting through the trees.

Instead, the driver called off the dog, the officer handed me a paper towel to clean the slobber off my arm, and the Rotty actually herded me into the tow truck.

"She likes to help," the driver said.
"She's beautiful," I said, and meant it. Despite the excessive salivation, this was obviously a spirited dog that cared a great deal about people. More Mongo than Cujo. She ran around, barking joyously as the driver winched my car up onto the strangely inadequate-looking hook, then clambered up into the cab and laid her head on my lap. I didn't mind the drool so much.

The driver was very kind, gave me $50 and dropped me at the only motel in the small truck-stop town. I called my parents. They did a lot of cursing. I mean, a lot. Like, words I didn't even think that my Alabama-born-child-of-the-fifties mother could have known. And, as it turned out, I did have a fever. A rising, uncomfortable appetite-stealing fever that kept me in bed for the next 48 hours while I waited for someone to trek from Atlanta to get me. It was the kind of attitude only a 21-year-old college student could possibly display. "Mommy, I drove to Chicago with all my money and my friend stole it to buy drugs and then my car broke down and I don't have any way to get home. Will you come get me?"

They did come and get me. And they bought a second-hand Nissan Sentra off the mechanic for $2,000. Then they each drove a car back to Conyers while I slept in the back seat. I crawled into bed at home - I'm sure without a word of thanks or appreciation - and slept for another two days. When I finally regained my senses and managed to keep down some food, I called work. Surprisingly, I still had a job. My mother had called and explained for me, and they'd moved my schedule around.

I returned to my small rental house with two new roommates in the first week of January, two girls who have been my friends for years and who would never strand me 14 hours from home without any money. I never heard from Gibran again. He never sent gas money, rent money or utilities money. I don't know what happened to him or his friends in the intervening years. But it seems he got his stuff together and now works in the medical field... which means he makes more money than I do now. Somehow that doesn't surprise me. He probably also sells narcotics out of the supply closet.

Do you think he'd send me the $400 he owes me?

Nah...